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Stalagmites layers contain important data

U.S. scientists studying cave stalagmites from Borneo have found the tropical Pacific might be more involved in climate change than previously believed.

Georgia Institute of Technology Assistant Professor of paleoclimatology Kim Cobb and graduate student Jud Partin studied stalagmites from two caves on the tropical Pacific island to determine how the Earth's climate suddenly changed several times during the past 25,000 years.

By analyzing the stalagmites, the researchers produced a high-resolution and continuous record of the climate affecting the equatorial rain forest.

"These stalagmites are, in essence, tropical ice cores forming over thousands of years," said Partin. "Each layer of the rock contains important chemical traces that help us determine what was going on in the climate thousands of years ago, much like the ice cores drilled from Greenland or Antarctica."

Partin and Cobb's research suggests the tropical Pacific played a much more active role in some of the abrupt climate change events of Earth's past than was once thought and might even have caused some of the changes.

Their findings are reported in the current issue of the journal Nature.

Paleoclimatology

For the uninitiated, paleoclimatology is a field of study primarily interested with climate change throughout the past. Just as economists provide that caviate that past results are not indicative of future performance, the same hold true for data obtained about the earth's history, though recognizable and predictable patterns often emerge once sufficiently refined parameters are defined.

My current interests include study of polar ice cores, specifically pollen and air contents that provide data about precipitation as well as oxygen and carbon dioxide levels. My past studies have included plant fossils and sediment layers but I have become increasingly interested in the more basic elements that allowed life to flourish.